Electromagnetic self-forces and generalized Killing fields

Understand

Building upon previous results in scalar field theory, a formalism is developed that uses generalized Killing fields to understand the behavior of extended charges interacting with their own electromagnetic fields.

• New notions of effective linear and angular momenta are identified, and their evolution equations are derived exactly in arbitrary (but fixed) curved spacetimes.
• A slightly modified form of the Detweiler-Whiting axiom that a charge's motion should only be influenced by the so-called "regular" component of its self-field is shown to follow very easily.
• It is exact in some interesting cases, and approximate in most others.